1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing image data generating device that generates printing image data used for a thermal transfer printer, a thermal transfer printer, and a computer program.
2. Description of the Related Art
As one example of the thermal transfer printer, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-15886 discloses a printing device that conveys a ribbon to which ink (dye) of plural colors is applied together with paper in the state in which the ribbon is pressed against the paper by a thermal head and heats the ribbon by current application to a heat generating resistor of the thermal head to thermally transfer the ink of the ribbon to the paper. In this printer, when the heat quantity of the thermal head is larger, the amount of ink transfer to the paper is larger and higher density is obtained. When the heat quantity of the thermal head is smaller, the amount of ink transfer to the paper is smaller and lower density is obtained. Based on this characteristic, this printer generates printing image data obtained by expressing the image as the printing subject by pixel-by-pixel grayscale values in advance and performs thermal transfer (printing) on a line-by-line basis by carrying out heating control of the thermal head so as to obtain the heat quantity corresponding to the grayscale values of the pixels configuring this printing image data.
The printing image data used for this thermal transfer printer is generated based on the image data as the printing subject by an image data generating device realized through running of a computer program referred to also as device driver and printer driver in a computer such as a personal computer.